November 15, 2017bonnaire champagne
My buddy Tara, the Wine Passionista, has requested me to contribute a brief article to a ebook she is writing. This set the create juices flowing. I knew what she meant about wanting a “memorable wine second” and I can consider fairly a number of. However what leapt out at me most was a very impromptu vertical tasting within the cellars of certainly one of our producers situated simply exterior Cramant. Such a enjoyable reminiscence, that I assumed it price sharing.
JL Bonnaire makes LeComber champagne for Park Lane. He’s a terrific producer situated in Cramant, a 100% Grand Cru chardonnay village. The champagne itself is clear, crisp, enjoyable however with critical undertones. Kind of grown up, in an adolescent kind of approach, which makes it an awesome aperitif, nice for a critical second and in addition an awesome refresher when again from a tough session on the gymnasium! When requested which particular person would describe the wine and why, I settled on two: Ruperty Penry-Jones meets Holly Willoughby as a result of they’re enjoyable, fascinating and enchantment to broad viewers!
We began working with Bonnaire in round 1997. The unbelievable second got here when Monsieur JL took us all the way down to the cellars to reveal bottle age; it was about 10.30 within the morning and the center was nonetheless recovering from the double shot of espresso simply administered! We went all the way down to the second stage of cellaring and he took out a bottle opener and opened a bottle within the quaint approach (ie by cracking off the crown cap, letting the pure bubbles eject the sediment after which stoppering the bottle along with his thumb). Bottle 1 open; bottle 1 tasters poured. This bottle had had 18 months age and was energetic as a cricket however svelte on the similar time. Bottle 2 was adopted by bottle 3 after which by bottle 4. LeComber tasting was completed with the final bottle at about 40 months bottle age and I think ignored from earlier disgorgings!
However someway, Monsieur was on a roll. I’ll by no means know if it was as a result of we caught him on a great day or it was as a result of we have been typically fascinated by the tasting however we headed all the way down to stage 3. These have been the pure Chardonnay (blanc de blanc) cuvees, and classic at that. We ended up tasting champagne from the early Eighties and I used to be blown away by the unbelievable creaminess with woosh of vanilla, however all of the whereas the freshness and application defied 15+ years of growing older.
Curiously, this taught me two classes: the UK client is conditioned to what’s fed to him most frequently; Bonnaire champagnes are wonderful however they’re additionally extra subtle – which suggests considerably out of the bizarre – and they’re harder to promote in comparison facet by facet with a standard mix. I additionally learnt in regards to the distinction between pre and publish disgorgement bottle age and the way newly disgorged older wines can supply one thing so subtle and but so out of the bizarre; kind of outdated however new. Curiously plainly the key homes have additionally caught on with this method with Bollinger and Dom Perignon regularly providing not too long ago disgorged parcels of older vintages.
Typically folks suppose personalised champagne means inferior champagne. Not so in each case, and positively not so in our case.
Because the nights attract and the temperatures plunge, take into consideration attempting your champagne barely much less chilled for max enjoyment.
Pip pip!
